What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Apelsin]

4 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Which one do the underwater propulsion for this gigantic sub?

The electric ducted fans you can see on the sides towards the back of it are the only propulsion. They're from NF aeronautics iirc. That's just a surface ship btw, it can't dive.

[VoidSquid]

After procrastinating not for days but weeks (well, ok, I did clean up my KSP installation from garbage, which took some time), I finally started with the boring task to flood the Jool system with satellites: 24 relay satellites plus 20 ScanSat satellites. Deploying 44 satellites, if boring has any meaning, it's this. 

And it's not finished yet, to the contrary, sigh...

[dprostock]

25 minutes ago, VoidSquid said:

After procrastinating not for days but weeks (well, ok, I did clean up my KSP installation from garbage, which took some time), I finally started with the boring task to flood the Jool system with satellites: 24 relay satellites plus 20 ScanSat satellites. Deploying 44 satellites, if boring has any meaning, it's this. 

And it's not finished yet, to the contrary, sigh...

Why so many?
I would say, except for mistake, that with three inside Laythe's orbit and three others outside Pool's orbit, each containing an RA-100 antenna and an 88-88 antenna, wouldn't it be enough to have the entire Jool System covered?

[VoidSquid]

Following basically this tutorial here https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Setting_up_a_CommNet_system#Jool_system

3 x3 = 9 for Jool, each moon 5x3=15, makes 24.

Then each moon with 4 ScanSats (visual, radar low, radar high, resource, biome; combined into 4 satellites for each)  = 20

Total 44 satellites then.

Ok, I admit, needed a little break from that, did a Mun landing and Eve science contract in between.  

EDIT: All right, brought at least a couple of the carrier rockets to the target orbits. ToDo: bring the other rockets into target orbits. That done, start deploying the individual satellites. That will take some time...

Edited February 21, 2021 by VoidSquid

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, VoidSquid said:

Following basically this tutorial here https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Setting_up_a_CommNet_system#Jool_system

I like this one.  Probably a synthesis of both would be better.

 

[Nicodo123]

I made an SSTO

[Apelsin]

So here's a follow up on this post about my career Eve SSTO mission, probably the last one I do for a while. 

The science gains from my Urlum probe got me into the late-game fission engine nodes from FFT and KA, leaving only fusion and AM left. This allowed me to expand my reusable heavy lift capabilities and launch the mothership in one launch.

Heavy booster + launch:

Spoiler

Testing the new Pentos booster - capable of over 260T to LKO, making it my most capable reusable launch vehicle and 3rd most powerful one overall.

It's powered by 5 gas-core aerospike NTRs from Kerbal Atomics. Since I also have SystemHeat installed, I needed to deal with the excessive heat production while trying to avoid using radiators during the atmospheric ascent. I went with what seems to be the intended solution for this - increasing the loop volume by adding a bunch of coolant tanks that slow the heating for the ~3-4 minutes it takes to leave the atmosphere. The UI ends up looking a bit redicolous.

After booster design was finalized, the Eve-bound mothership was hauled up to LKO:

 I initially planned to do the launch with the Starling nuclear SSTO already attatched, but decided against it as the fairing would have to be rediculously huge. This worked out well, as it allowed me to send up the forgotten second engineer (2 were required to inflate the ships' centrifuges). Here it is in orbit ready to depart:

Trip to Eve:

Spoiler

After completing the tranfer, the mothership stats its breaking burn at the destination:

Notably, a second craft was sent to Eve right before - a large LH2 refinery. This would allow the SSTO to stay and be refuelled + resused indefinitely. The nuclear tug pushing it was meant to be reusable, but that plan was scrapped when it turned out I fell for the classic blunder of underestimating how intense the reentry heating is for this planet  

Jeb examining the exterior of the mothership in low orbit:

Descent:

Spoiler

Pr. Eeloo - powered Starling SSTO crewed by 2 kerbals, detatched and de-orbiting:

A breaking burn in closed-cycle mode was required to survive the toasty entry:

Pardon the low graphics settings flame effects

Picking a spot for landing, love the sunsets here:

Getting out and taking in the view after landing:

Taking off to continue exploring and eventually reach the LH2 refinery. The best cruising altitude seems to be ~44km. 

To be continued

Main part mods: FFT, NFT, KA, mk2/mk3/stockalike mining extensions, TU recolour depot

Edited February 21, 2021 by Apelsin

[jimmymcgoochie]

Landed a rover on the Moon, a mere 2km from the target waypoint, only to discover that the control point for driving forwards was upside down. A quick “software update” a.k.a. hack the save file was unsuccessful because there are four rotation values for each part and I have no idea which does what, so in the end I just cheated a second rover (with the control point fixed) out to the same place, brought the first one back (it exploded when it spawned in for some reason even though it was above the ground) and called it even.

[The Aziz]

You know that loaf pose cats do sometimes? With paws tucked under?

Yeah.

[Guest]

I made one that takes passengers.

[NHunter]

My interstellar cargo vessel has finally reached its destination: Drozhe. The second ship carrying crew will arrive there in another 30 days.

now I'm performing a 44km/s deceleration burn (thankfully my antimatter engine does have enough fuel for that) -- something that will take another hour.

[Nicodo123]

I orbited around the Mun in my custom rocket.

 

[LHACK4142]

Built a Soyuz-looking rocket to rescue 3 stranded kerbonauts on the mun then realized I wouldn't have enough to get back. I wanted to practice landing at a set location so now I'm just pretending it's supplies. 

[Guest]

Recording on easter egg video has begun

[Misguided Kerbal]

I sent up a basic Phoenix Shuttle to go crew and check out my new LKO fuel station (replacing the previous Kraken-struck one).

 

Liftoff!

 

Spoiler

Dramatic Shots (Because they're fun):

 

Ascent was nice and smooth as usual via mechjeb, though I had to change the trajectory settings quite a bit in order to not flip over. However, Mechjeb isn't a human, and it can never handle the second stage of the Phoenix, so I had to take it manually from there, but it was nothing trivial, as the first stage had completed everything short of circularization, and my flying skills are (if I say so myself) decent.

 

I got lucky, as rendezvous was only 13 m/s away even though I never intended to launch-to-rendezvous, as my ships usually have more than enough margin, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth (whatever that even means).

 

Docking was in the dark, though I did manage to get the solar panels lined up perfectly to the station. I've gotten pretty good at it even though I have Dockrotate installed (But I can't remove it, as it breaks everything if I do. The problem is, it causes a lot of bugs and problems. Ugh.)

 

Pictures in the light:

Did I mention how I love the general aesthetic of this station? Speaking of stations, I'll need to get around to building the KISS-2 and the CSS (Commercial Space Station) soon, though I do have an easy way out with the awesome inflatables in SSPXr. But that's all for next time. 

*Slithers out of this thread until the next page*

 

Spoiler

 

 

[magnemoe]

Finally got an kraken drive to work, at 9 g its a bit overpowered

8*8 small docking ports on two trust plates. 
Found that the main problem was drag, because all the docking ports, terminal velocity is just 65 m/s who created all sort of issues inside the atmosphere. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by magnemoe

[jimmymcgoochie]

I made a couple of tweaks to my Moon rover design and- it crashed spectacularly. For some reason the rover itself has a centre of mass that’s subtly offset, so when I add the deceleration SRBs on the bottom their thrust is out of alignment and the whole thing pitched beyond the power of the RCS to control it- even with extra RCS thrusters on the SRBs to try and counter this same problem.

A small redesign has solved this issue for this craft (the CoT is now aligned with CoM for both the SRBs and the landing engines) but it’s probably time to build a proper rover using the RoveMate rather than something I stapled together out of whatever parts I happened to have at the time.

[NHunter]

After some trajectory correction for the main cargo ship, I've released the mapping satellite it was carrying. The sat will be flying ahead and, hopefully, have some useful data on the terrain and resources of Drozhe ready by the time the main ship arrives to the planet's low orbit.

[Caerfinon]

Science collection at the Edge of Night

 

[Cavscout74]

Got a probe to Jool launched in my JNSQ career, only to discover the launch window planner built into Kerbal Alarm Clock had let me down - the actual window isn't for another 103 days.  I guess its better to get the probe launched early and wait

My second manned Mun mission also got underway. 

Rendezvous with the lander

Descending to land

Returning to orbit

Also made a second attempt at my remote Mun rover.  All was going well till I lost signal during descent - but at least I fixed the problem with the transfer stage not separating cleanly

[NHunter]

KSS Venture, the crewed vessel for the Kerbol exploration mission has arrived to the Drozhe SoI, where it will help setting up the local production and supply (surface) base.  Once the base is set up and operational, it will deliver the massive relays to Kerbol orbit to enable permanent connection to Rhode space center and begin the exploration of the Kerbal home system.

Meanwhile, the mapping satellite has already reached low Drozhe orbit and began scanning the planet, looking for a good surface base site.

 

[xendelaar]

I wanted to see if I could make a fast, yet safe trip to Duna.

A normal trip usually takes around 270 Kerbal days (which equals to 1620 human hours).
I aimed to decrease the transfer time under 120 hours.

For this mission, I waited ( using the extremely precise eyeball method ) until the distance between Kerbin and Duna was at a minimum and then flew in a straight line at my target.
Using a 750 tonnes ship, I burnt over 18km/s of fuel along the way. The entire burn took over 2 hours to complete. I used the better time warp mod to increase physics warp in order to keep what's left of my sanity, hehe. I eventually didn't use the last 2 km/s of remaining fuel because I didn't have enough ablator to keep Jeb cool during the harsh aerobraking on Duna.

The whole mission was far from perfectly planned, so I figure with some fine tuning and some extra delta v, it could be possible to reduce the transfer time even further.

 

I made a small clip of the mission for anybody who's interested [1:00]

 

 

[peteletroll]

On 2/22/2021 at 4:23 AM, Misguided Kerbal said:

even though I have Dockrotate installed (But I can't remove it, as it breaks everything if I do. The problem is, it causes a lot of bugs and problems. Ugh.)

Too bad man! You can report your problems in DockRotate thread: 

 

[JIMMY_the_DOG]

Docked a robotic arm to M.O.S.S.

(pics of M.O.S.S. coming soon)

And I am putting up a new space station in a 76-76km orbit, its a huge manned refueler modular space station.

Again, pics coming soon!

[The Destroyer]

Finished up EP12 of my series where I start expanding operations on the Moon!